Page 110 - Psychoceramics and the Test of Fire

Arbor Vitae Cortex

Without two pieces of information I would have been searching
for a needle in a haystack. The first was the name of the man I
sought: Oliver Betzaroff. The second was a floor plan of the airplane
hangar masquerading as convention center through which I was
threading my way as if navigating a maze to find a Minotaur—in this
case the booth of Tunnelight Therapies. There I hoped to find Mr.
Betzaroff, that company’s sole proprietor and promoter. Based on
the peripherality of the dim recess of the New You Expo to which he
had been relegated, his rental fee for the three-day show-and-sell of
New Age smoke and mirrors must have been the lowest possible.
To get there, however, I had to run a gauntlet of better-financed
self-help products and promises. Snake oil, as noted by its students,
was not a lubricant to stay behind the times. On every side I was
assaulted by audiovisual amazement: I could unlock my inner
bodhisattva (books and videos), protect my aura from malign
influences, domestic and foreign (apotropaic but stylish jewelry and
sacralized undergarments) and feed the starving spiritual centers of
my flesh and bones (exotic probiotics, glorified juice extractors and
survivalist desiccated freeze-dried four-course meals in shiny metallic
pouches). All was predicated on a congregation of seekers, as if such
an esoteric marketplace of vendors and customers were destined by
Higher Powers to convene at this place, on this day, to consummate
a transcendent connection. That money changed hands was
incidental to the real transaction, the infusion of hope to those who
either could not be helped or who didn’t really need any help at all.
But a light would be kept burning in the window as long as enough
moths kept dashing themselves against the pane.
My cynicism provided a shield against these meretricious
blandishments, although I took pains not to ape an FDA investigator
or litigious competitor. Smile and nod, keep on walking.
Nevertheless, I was trying to look serious: I even got a pair of horn-
rimmed glasses to go with my crew cut and Ivy League button-down
sports shirt. A few others wandering the hall had a similar
appearance, if not quite to the same limit of non-caricature for which
I had striven. They were my model: potential buyers of sub-
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